Benghazi Committee Holds Hearing on Administrations Lack of Transparency, Accountability, and Timeliness

Today, the House Select Committee on Benghazi held its first open hearing of the 114th Congress on the lack of transparency, accountability, and timeliness by the Obama Administration. The Select Committee has recently received 15,000 pages of new, relevant Benghazi documents that were previously requested by other committees, such as House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and have never been seen by Congress. Below is Congressman Westmoreland's statement.

"The stonewalling by the Executive Branch on this investigation and this committee must stop," stated Westmoreland. "And because of their inability and refusal to turn over all the documents related to the investigation, we are being forced to focus on the process of document requests versus the actual events that occurred the night of the attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans. The withholding, excessive redactions, and delayed responses by the State Department, CIA, and other agencies is unacceptable and stalls the opportunity for this committee to produce a fair and complete report of this investigation.

"Excuse after excuse has been made by this administration as to why the Select and other Congressional committees have not received all the documents and facts from their agencies. Well, the State Department's production of 15,000 new pages of information relevant to the attack proves the necessity of the Select Committee and this investigation, and that we are on the right track towards getting answers. However; the large amount of redactions in these documents hinder the process of finding the truth and slow down the progress of the committee. The responsibility of this committee is to use ALL information available to produce a report and I look forward to the agencies in question producing all relevant documents so that this committee can do its job and we can prevent an attack like Benghazi from happening again."

Congressman Westmoreland hopes the focus of the investigation will return to obtaining all the documents and all the facts in a timely manner so the Select Committee on Benghazi can produce a complete report to the American people.

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